To enable an Ethernet ring to be dual homed into a spanning tree protocol controlled Ethernet network, spanning tree control packets (Bridged Protocol Data Units or BPDUs) are transported as data frames over the Ethernet ring. This allows the Ethernet ring to appear as a single link to the spanning tree protocol so that the spanning tree can extend over the link. However, since the spanning tree does not have visibility as to the internal structure of the ring, the spanning tree cannot block links on the Ethernet ring network. Conversely, BPDUs from the Ethernet ring are not transmitted into the Ethernet domain that is implementing the spanning tree, so that the spanning tree is not affected by the control mechanism in place on the Ethernet ring network.